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Showing posts from April, 2011

I Will Still Like "Me"

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It wasn’t too long ago when all I wanted to do was hide from the world. I wanted to disappear where nobody could find me. I did it because too many people disappointed me. I developed this irrational, unhealthy fear of people, more so because of their actions and most of all , because of their possible rejection. It didn’t matter if it was work related or in my social life - I feared people. As I've said in previous posts, I pushed people away. I kept friends at arm’s length. I didn’t trust anyone. Then one day I finally realized that there are way too many people to hide from. Just because a select few had disappointed me, insulted me, or perhaps rejected me - I felt the same thing would run its course again, and I would get hurt as a result. I then brushed myself off and started to let people in again, this time fully acknowledging that “this person” may do the same thing to me as “that person”. But, most importantly: they’re not the same people. The circumstances, the situatio

Writing Ingredients: Every Single Drop of Your Vulnerability

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“There’s nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter (or computer) and open a vein.” ~Walter Wellesley Strangely enough, I had a few people ask me about writing within the last couple of weeks. They wanted to know a few things: between how to get started, creating a blog, writing a book and even if there were writers out there who would write for them. I was surprised at the last one because I know for myself, I can’t let other people take the wheel, even if I say, “Make a left hand turn.” I’m always the driver, so I have a hard time relating to that one. The people I spoke with all seem to want to go from zero to sixty in 3.5 seconds. Writing isn’t an instant job with dollar signs to be seen right away, unless you went to college for journalism and landed the ideal job at a well known media source. I didn’t see a dime for three years while writing. The first thing I ever wrote was my book, A Prayer Away From Healing . Then it was advised by the publishing house I t

The Other Side of Crazy

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In one of my previous posts , I was talking about a book I’m now reading called, Anxiety Free by Robert L. Leahy, Ph.D., and within a few pages, I found myself getting more anxiety as they spoke about the long-term effects of anxiety: heart disease, stroke, aneurysms and so on and so on. Anyone with anxiety disorder certainly doesn’t want to hear about those side effects. In fact, most people with anxiety disorder always looks at the side effects of each medication they take - even if it’s just Tylenol. We fear any chemical that’ll possibly harm us, yet we reach for the very thing that may just destroy some of us for relief: alcohol. It’s a total contradiction to rely on alcohol and sedatives and be afraid of medications such as antidepressants, right? For me, I’m against antidepressants because their side effects are more alarming than the actual “good effects” of the meds. Have you ever seen one of their commercials for depression? There is a speaker that spews out 1,294.533.732 di

Crazy Talk

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Ever notice how much people strive to be “normal” - less crazy - less neurotic - less fanatical about everything and nothing at all? And, if those people are in fact, “crazy”, or perhaps a bit 'off' - they pretend to be normal. What is normal? What is acceptable? How much off the handle do we have to get in order for people to say that we're out of our flippin' minds? But “crazy” has been thrown around too freely. For instance, every single one of you probably has a “crazy ex”, right? We’ve probably even heard that about ourselves as well. But what makes someone “crazy”? What makes someone “normal”? If we can define them so precisely; so accurately , maybe being crazy isn’t such a bad thing at all. Maybe, being crazy means you have more passion for life, more passion for people, more passion about every single thing you encounter. Crazy people feel everything and aren’t afraid to let it show. In fact, the person in denial about being crazy will go off the handle if c

Waiting in the Wings

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All we need is some time to reflect on the things that made us happy at some point in our lives. All we need is less time to obsess over things that had come to an end. And sometimes, we need even lesser amounts of time to figure out why they have come to an end. As a result, those “happy times” become more of a facade; an illusion, and perhaps a prelude to the end. If hindsight is 20/20, then why do we sometimes repeat the same pattern? If doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is defined as “insanity” by Einstein, is it because we want to get it right the next time around? Is it because we want to improve on our mistakes? Is it so bad to go around the mountain once again, but with someone new, or with a different job but same line of work, as well as pursuing that dream that never fully comes into fruition? When will we “get it”, or do we have to realize that we’re not going to get it? Some people would call that giving up on your dreams. Others would s

Irrationally Rationalizing Absolutely Nothing

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It’s been years since it’s been this bad. Although morphed into a different form from one year to the next, it’s still the same underlining fear of. ..nothing. Or is it something? I’ve had panic disorder since I was sixteen years old. I should be used to it by now. ..but I’m so not. Each time is like my first time. Each time it debilitates me into a fumbling mess, whether it materializes into immediate panic, where I have to grab a paper bag and breathe, or in some cases, it wakes me up with terror. I’ve recently started developing nocturnal panic attacks, where it jolts me out of a deep sleep. The pain is real - chest/jaw pain that radiates all the way down my left arm. So, I pop an aspirin. Any “normal” person would immediately think “heart attack” - but each and every single fricken time I got to the emergency room, it’s just a panic attack. EKG is normal. Blood tests are fine. “ Go home & take these to relax.” It then makes me afraid to sleep at night. I’m terrified of my be

Just Another Thirty Years...

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Ever since my dad was diagnosed with cancer, he’s been getting radiation treatments from Monday through Friday. They wear him out. He goes in for a few minute at a time and when he comes back home, he sleeps most of the day. His appetite is next to none. He has lost over thirty pounds so far and has completely stopped smoking. He says cigarettes disgust him ...(a prayer I prayed a week before he quit mind you.) I prayed that somehow, some way, he would pick up a cigarette and be entirely disgusted to where he would never pick one up again. Now it’s my mother he’s concerned about. We’re all concerned about her. While dad sits inside the waiting room of the clinic to get radiation, he is considered one of the ‘light cases’ there - while others are worse off, some with tumors on their hearts which are inoperable, and others with throat cancer due to smoking. For the first time in my father’s life, he actually sees what smoking can really do to people. For the first time in my father’s li

Natural Born Liar

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One of my first experiences with things becoming inconsistent was my childhood upbringing. From being raised to ‘do the right thing’ from watching my parents getting taken away by the FBI at a very young age. At first I was infuriated that I had been lied to all my life, but then I realized how human my parents actually were. They did everything to provide a home for their family, even if . . . Although my trust for people dwindled a tad, my ability to forgive them was quite easy to do. They were like me. They lied to keep things calm. I lied to them about my whereabouts or if I had gone out drinking with my friends. “No mom, I didn’t drink. ...I didn’t smoke.” I lied. I was inconsistent. My mom was always quick to forgive me, even when she caught me with a cigarette dangling from my lying mouth or found a slew of beer cans stashed away in a big bag behind my bureau. My friends were always envious that I never got a “real” punishment. The most my mom would do was pull my private t